AEJMC Newspaper & Online News Division The academic-professional "chasm"

[Singer, Jane B]

Hi, all. Good points all around. FYI, in addition to the "Research You Can
Use" initiative, the AEJMC Outreach Committee also recently completed a
collaborative project with ASNE (which Rob Logan was instrumental in setting
up and for which I then served as commissioning editor). Dave Weaver, Robert
Picard, Steve Reese and Scott Reinardy all provided excellent, short and
highly readable summaries of key ideas in their respective fields. These
were then published in the ASNE online member newsletter.

Jane


On 6/25/12 10:34 AM, "Logan, Robert (NIH/NLM) [E]" <rlogan at mail.nih.gov>
wrote:

>     Folks:
>     I agree with Robert Picard.
>     Journalism and mass comm practitioners are interested in research if
> it is well-written and accessible.
>     Robert cites several long-standing sources. Some editors of these
> publications enjoy publishing well-written research summaries.
>     Jennifer McGill and Deb Gump mention 'Research You Can Use,' which was
> intended to provide another, helpful resource with AEJMC's stamp of
> approval.
>     I suspect the best thing that can emerge from the current debate is an
> editorial team devoted to sustaining a similar project. I realize some of
> you believe related editorial efforts will not be rewarded at your
> workplace. My suggestion is the latter type of activity may be more valued
> within Journalism-Mass Communication (JMC) units where senior
> administrators and the department/school/college face criticisms similar
> to what several of you outline. Also, the latter can be an excellent
> outlet for gifted, well-supervised students.
>     An alternative is for JMC journal editors to require all first authors
> add a 'public abstract' that explains (in plain language) why the research
> is important to persons in the field, practitioners, and the public.
>     To provide a little perspective, please do not assume the arguments
> about relevant research endure only among JMC professionals and academics.
> There is a highly similar debate within many areas of medicine and public
> health. To buttress what Robert suggests, JMC may have more outlets to
> translate research for practitioners than in some other professions.
> However, JMC needs to borrow some of the better translational-pertinence
> ideas from clinical medicine, such as a requiring a public abstract.
>      Best regards,
>           Rob Logan
> ===================================================================
> 
> Robert A. Logan
> Senior staff
> U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health
> Missouri School of Journalism (emeritus)
> 
> 
> On 6/25/12 10:38 AM, "Robert Picard" <robert.picard at politics.ox.ac.uk>
> wrote:
> 
>> Why do we assume practitioners need to come to our scholarly publications
>> to get relevant research?
>> 
>> Having published research in the language of practitioners for 30 years
>> in Presstime, Editor & Publisher, ASNE Newsletter, Niemen Reports, INMA
>> Ideas, The Masthead, the Guild Reporter and host of other journalism
>> trade and association magazines, I can tell you practitioners are
>> interested in our research and its application, but they want it in
>> language they can use.  Nothing about publishing research there detracts
>> from the scholarly academic publications we do, which serves a very
>> different purpose.
>> 
>> Robert
>> 
>> Prof. Robert G. Picard
>> Director of Research, Reuters Institute
>> Department of Politics and International Relations
>> University of Oxford
>> 13 Norham Gardens, Oxford, OX2 6PS UK
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: news-list-bounces at aejmc.net [mailto:news-list-bounces at aejmc.net] On
>> Behalf Of Everbach, Tracy
>> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 2:42 PM
>> To: JOHN B ZIBLUK; SkyeDent at aol.com; john.hartman at dacor.net;
>> dsclaussen at hotmail.com; ted.pease at usu.edu; news-list at aejmc.net
>> Subject: Re: AEJMC Newspaper & Online News Division The
>> academic-professional "chasm"
>> 
>> I agree with what most of you are saying about our research being
>> inaccessible to professionals. In fact, sometimes when I tell
>> professionals about the work I have done (on race and gender) they will
>> say, "That sounds interesting. Where can I read that?" It is somewhat
>> embarrassing to have to tell them, "It's in a research journal that you
>> can only access if you can get into an academic library database or if
>> you subscribe to the academic journal." So, what's the solution? I know
>> Newspaper Research Journal was supposed to be for professionals and for
>> academics, but no professionals I know have ever heard of it, much less
>> read articles in it. So, how do we make our research accessible? I am
>> sure this has been asked many times, but it seems like a group of
>> intelligent journalism profs could come up with an answer.
>> 
>> Tracy
>> 
>> Tracy Everbach, Ph.D.
>> Associate professor
>> 214-995-8464-cell
>> Frank W. and Sue Mayborn School of Journalism University of North Texas
>> 1155 Union Circle #311460
>> Denton, TX  76203-5017
>> ________________________________________
>> From: news-list-bounces at aejmc.net [news-list-bounces at aejmc.net] on behalf
>> of JOHN B ZIBLUK [JZIBLUK at astate.edu]
>> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 7:53 AM
>> To: SkyeDent at aol.com; john.hartman at dacor.net; dsclaussen at hotmail.com;
>> ted.pease at usu.edu; news-list at aejmc.net
>> Subject: Re: AEJMC Newspaper & Online News Division The
>> academic-professional "chasm"
>> 
>> Colleagues,
>> 
>> This gap has been one of the elephants i the room since I began my
>> academic career 20 years ago, where I worked with our colleague Jack
>> Hartman as he lived in Bowling Green, Ohio, where I was in grad school.
>> 
>> How many times have you gone to an academic presentation and rolled your
>> eyes as some nervous grad student presented an incomprehensible set of
>> Powerpoints using four-way ANOVAe and linear regressions describing
>> something totally  arcane and obscure, or a qualitative critical analysis
>> on the social construction of the meaning depictions of codpeices in
>> Edwardian proto-subversive film culture circa 1907?
>> 
>> we support our colleagues on principle and roll our eyes under our
>> breath, if I may mix metaphors.
>> 
>> I have had MANY conversations over the years about the over-emphasis on
>> researchResearchRESEARCH!!!!!!, particularly theoretical research rather
>> than lowly and pedestrian applied and accessible research to which many
>> of us former-and-current journalists are attracted . But the academic
>> culture, particularly at research-intensive schools, is all about
>> scholarship. And while there is CERTAINLY a place for that even in our
>> disciplines, it's not everything.
>> 
>> Since communication/journalism programs are often viewed as professional
>> programs within universities and within departments, we sometimes have to
>> justify our scholarship as we compete for resources with STEM areas,
>> social sciences and the humanities. We need to show that we're good and
>> valuable scholars, too. But good, professional work is becoming more
>> important all the time within academe and beyond it.
>> 
>> At a time when journalism is undergoing radical change and high schools
>> don;t teach civics any more, I think we have an opportunity, perhaps an
>> obligation, to help our students, our colleagues in the profession , and
>> our audiences, understand what's happening and the implications of what's
>> happening. What's at stake, I think, is free speech in America. And we
>> can have a major role in strengthening the profession and the
>> understanding and practice of free speech through serious research and
>> serious application of that research and ongoing serious journalism that
>> we can produce ourselves.
>> 
>> But too often we stick our noses in the proverbial sand and crank out
>> jargon-laden piffle that we can reasonably expect to be published
>> somewhere in order to make tenure.
>> 
>> There are good programs who have a good balance, some at larger schools,
>> and many are at smaller schools. But many, probably most, are in what the
>> Chronicle of Higher Education (for whom I freelance sometimes) calls "the
>> mushy middle."  That's where I have spent most of my career: trying to
>> balance a research agenda, get tenure (which I did) and then maybe show
>> up for class now and then. The reality is that teaching suffers because
>> it's what you can cut back on, practically speaking, with no penalty.
>> 
>> If we don't make changes, or find ways to defend ourselves and resist
>> changes,  outside forces may force us to make substantive changes in what
>> we do and how. I think the general emphasis on assessment is just the
>> start. For good or ill, the Ceppos memo signals that a discussion that we
>> have been having for years  in small programs, of which I am a former
>> head, is coming to the bigger schools.
>> 
>> I think the news division of AEJMC is the core of the group. It's the
>> biggest division and it can be the leader in re-focusing what we do. I
>> would be happy  be part  something proactive as we face issues rather
>> than engage in continual hand-wringing over it.
>> 
>> jack
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> John B. (Jack) Zibluk, Ph.D.
>> Professor
>> Arkansas State University
>> Department of Journalism
>> P.O. Box 1930
>> State University, AR 72467
>> (H) 870-931-1284
>> (W) 870-972-3255
>> (cell) 870-219-3328
>> ________________________________________
>> From: news-list-bounces at aejmc.net [news-list-bounces at aejmc.net] On Behalf
>> Of SkyeDent at aol.com [SkyeDent at aol.com]
>> Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2012 6:16 PM
>> To: john.hartman at dacor.net; dsclaussen at hotmail.com; ted.pease at usu.edu;
>> news-list at aejmc.net
>> Subject: Re: AEJMC Newspaper & Online News Division The
>> academic-professional "chasm"
>> 
>> Hello,
>> 
>> I was a pure journalist for almost a decade.  Then I worked in
>> entertainment as a TV writer.  Then, in 05, I went back to school to
>> obtain my MFA so that I could teach journalism and screenwriting on the
>> higher education level.
>> 
>> During both my professional career and my academic career, no one from
>> AEJMC ever reached out to me.  Some of the tenured mass comm professors I
>> met even belittled me because I had worked professionally in the field of
>> journalism.  I sought out AEJMC on my own.
>> 
>> I'm not sure you should berate professional journalists for not reading
>> academic publications unless it can be proven that you've reached out to
>> all of us.  I've been to BEA conferences, NATPE conferences, National
>> Association of Black Journalists conferences.  Not a word from AEJMC.
>> 
>> In addition, just because we are talking about the same subject does not
>> mean that we are talking the same language.  Academicians write in a
>> style that is so unlike the style of professional journalists.  I mean,
>> you would not go to Spain and berate them because they did not speak
>> English.
>> 
>> For example, AEJMC splits professors up into a myriad of categories.  In
>> journalism, we're just all journalists.  If you cover politics, you can
>> still cover crime.  And you can go from being a White House correspondent
>> to a public relations expert with the same skills.
>> 
>> One can dish professional journalists as much as one wants.  But, in the
>> short time in which new media, piracy, and the internet have caused the
>> death knell of many fine journalism institutions, the cry by students for
>> journalism education is dwindling also.
>> 
>> We can stand together or we can fall together.
>> 
>> Skye
>> 
>> In a message dated 6/24/2012 7:00:02 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>> john.hartman at dacor.net writes:
>> If it is mission-sensitive, relevant and accessible, journalists and
>> journalism professors will read it. Ted and Dane's thoughts were both
>> mission-sensitive and relevant and should be widely read. Most of what
>> journalism professors write about the profession of journalism is neither
>> mission-sensitive nor relevant. That has been a constant for the
>> three-plus decades I have been paying attention. Gerald Stone created
>> Newspaper Research Journal to provide practical research, but most of his
>> initiative has been lost over the years. I say keep trying to bridge the
>> gap, but in today's environment where the once mighty Newhouse
>> organization is going out of the daily newspaper business and into the
>> tri-weekly advertising distribution business, I would not hold out much
>> hope of a breakthrough. Nonethess, I and we should keep trying.
>> -- John K. Hartman, professor of journalism, Central Michigan University
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Dr. Dane S. Claussen<mailto:dsclaussen at hotmail.com>
>> To: Edward C. Pease<mailto:ted.pease at usu.edu> ;
>> news-list at aejmc.net<mailto:news-list at aejmc.net>
>> Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 7:10 PM
>> Subject: Re: AEJMC Newspaper & Online News Division The
>> academic-professional "chasm"
>> 
>> Plenty to respond to in Ceppos's essay, both pro and con, but for the
>> moment I'll say only that readership of J&MC scholarly journals is a
>> two-way street.  Journals could publish more practical research and be
>> more readable for people who don't have Ph.D.s, but professional
>> journalists aren't exactly clamoring for professional development,
>> whatever they might claim in surveys.  Only 10% of U.S. journalists
>> bother to belong to SPJ; fewer than that read AJR or CJR; only 10-15% of
>> U.S. journalists read the paper or electronic version of The New York
>> Times; obviously a very low percentage read books of journalism
>> criticism/recommendations by people such as Fuller, Fallows,
>> Kovach/Rosenstiel, Rosen, etc.; most beat reporters seem only
>> semi-serious, not really serious, about developing expertise on their
>> beat (with sports being the exception that proves the rule, and the rule
>> is quite painful when to comes to, say, business/economics reporting).
>> Good luck in getting U.S. journalists to read Journalism & Mass
>> Communication Quarterly regardless of how fine the writing is, how
>> practical the research is, or how low the subscription price is.
>> 
>> As for JMC academics not reading scholarly research, there certainly is a
>> high percentage of them who don't want to and/or don't need to do
>> research (they already have tenure, or they teach at an institution where
>> research is not necessary to get tenure, or they are on a non-research
>> tenure track, or not on tenure track). I've seen professors retire from
>> research universities, and how that process physically goes can tell you
>> a lot, especially a visible layer of dust on journals sitting in an open
>> box in the hallway.
>> 
>> Dane S. Claussen, Ph.D., M.B.A.
>> Editor (3/2006-9/2012), Journalism & Mass Communication Educator,
>> Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC);
>> and Head (2011-12), Media Management & Economics Division, AEJMC
>> 
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> From: ted.pease at usu.edu
>> To: News-list at aejmc.net
>> Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2012 14:32:54 +0000
>> Subject: AEJMC Newspaper & Online News Division The academic-professional
>> "chasm"
>> 
>> All: Jerry Ceppos (re)opened this can of worms.
>> Opinion: The same old song about journalism's academic-professional
>> disconnect<http://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/?p=8031>
>> June 21st, 2012 Posted in Opinion<http://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/?cat=1> |
>> Edit<https://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/wp-admin/post.php?post=8031&action=edit>
>> | By Ted Pease<mailto:ted.pease at usu.edu> Jerry Ceppos, the new dean of
>> the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU and a former newspaper
>> editor, writes somewhat grimly this week about "How Journalism
>> Professionals and Educators Can Close the
>> Chasm<http://uiswcmsweb.prod.lsu.edu/manship/MassComm/AbouttheSchool/Repor
>> tsandPublications/item49390.html>."
>> His column took me back to my first journalism educators
>> (AEJMC<http://www.aejmc.org/>) convention-in 1984 at the University of
>> Florida. As a brand-new assistant professor, newly migrated from the
>> newsroom, that first encounter with journalism/mass communication
>> education was an epiphany. I remember distinctly hearing a research panel
>> presentation that included Guido Stempel and Max McCombs, two of the
>> biggest names in journalism research. I had never heard of them. "Wow!" I
>> thought. "This is great stuff. I wonder if anyone in the newsroom knows
>> about this."
>> More at http://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/?p=8031
>> 
>> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
>> Edward C. Pease, Ph.D
>> Professor & Department Head
>> Book Review Editor, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly Department
>> of Journalism & Communication Utah State University Logan, Utah
>> 84322-4605 435-797-3293; 435-797-3973 FAX . JCOM Website:
>> <http://www.usu.edu/journalism>
>> http://www.usu.edu/<http://www.usu.edu/journalism>journalism<http://www.us
>> u.edu/journalism>
>> . Hard News Café:
>> http://hardnewscafe.usu.edu<http://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/>
>> . PeezPix:
>> http://peezpixphotos.blogspot.com<http://tedsword.blogspot.com/>
>> . Today's WORD on Journalism:
>> http://tedsword.blogspot.com<http://tedsword.blogspot.com/>
>> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
>> "Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you can get the right ones in
>> the right order, you can nudge the world a little." --Tom Stoppard
>> 
>> [cid:X.MA1.1340579793 at aol.com]
>> 
>> Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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